Brown County Organization

County records are most often kept at the County Courthouse or another local repository. For further information about where the records for Brown County are kept, see the Brown County Courthouse page.

Historical Facts

Jacob Jennings Brown.jpg

Brown County is named for Maj. Gen. Jacob Brown who was a Commander-in-Chief of the Army in the early 1800's.

State

1840 Pensioners

A Census of Pensioners for Revolutionary or Military Services: With their Names, Ages, and Places of Residence, as Returned by the Marshalls of the Several Judicial Districts, Under the Act for Taking the Sixth Census. Washington, D.C., 1841. FHL 973 X2pc 1840; FHL 2321; digital version at Google Books. [See Illinois, Brown County on page 186.]

Illinois Public Land Purchase Records This record extract includes over 538,000 land sales from the 19th Century. Each entry includes the purchaser's name, purchase date, number of acres, price per acre, and in some cases the purchaser's sex and residence. Available at www.ancestry.com ($)

Military History and Records

Civil War

Civil War service men from Brown County served in various regiments. Men often joined a company (within a regiment) that originated in their county. Listed below are companies or regiments that were formed from men of Brown County.

1817-1936 An unspecified number of Illinois, Probate Records, 1819-1970 are available at the Family Search Records online database. The collection does not have an every name index, but the images are available to browse and may have indexes within each volume.

Public Records

Repositories

County Courthouse

County records are most often kept at the County Courthouse or another local repository. For further information about where the records for Brown County are kept, see the Brown County Courthouse page.

Family History Center

There are over 4500 Family History Centers in more than 80 countries offering public access to genealogical records from all over the world. Family History Centers provide patrons with access to over a billion online records and approximately 2.5 million circulating microfilms. Centers are staffed by local volunteers who are eager to provide genealogical research assistance. Currently there are no Family History Centers located directly in Brown County. To find the nearest Family History Center, check out the Family Search Centers page on the FamilySearch.org website.

Illinois Regional Archives Depository (IRAD-WIU)

IRAD is a system of Illinois Regional Archives Depositories managed by the Illinois State Archives, housing the archival records of local Illinois counties, townships, municipalities and school districts. The seven Regional Depositories are housed on state university campuses scattered throughout Illinois.Western Illinois University houses the records for Brown County.

Public Libraries

Brown County Public Library District143 West Main StreetMt. Sterling, IL 62353Tel: 217-773-4723

Taxation

Vital Records

Vital records consist of birth, death, marriage and divorce records. Original birth and death certificates recorded until the year 1916 are kept by the Brown County Clerk while those recorded after 1916 are kept by theIllinois Department of Public Health. with a copy to the County Clerk. Original marriage records are usually kept by the County Clerk from the establishment of the county to the present. Original divorce records are generally in the office of the Circuit Court Clerk.